Cupid's Dart

by Maggie MacKeever

  "Poundstock is well enough if you don't mind that pendulous belly, and those jowls, and the fact that he is quite old. Whateley is very handsome, and a baronet as well, but I cannot bring myself to repeat the tales I have heard about him. Trewhitt is eligible enough, even if he is said to be touched in the upper works, although I do not believe he has yet taken to addressing oak trees in Hyde Park like poor King George." For this excursion, Lady Denham had chosen to adorn herself in a day dress of chintz with a dark ground, and a silk bonnet trimmed with feathers. She had badgered her niece into wearing a green dress and a soft-crowned bonnet with a turned-back brim. If in the costume the girl bore an unfortunate resemblance to a great freckled shrub, at least she was not striped.

  "You will not use this information but in the most discreet manner," she continued. "I merely wished to give you a word to the wise."

  Lady Denham was not being entirely truthful. What she really wished was to get her niece safely tied-up, thereby sparing them both the agony of a London season. Or seasons, because Amice couldn't imagine that Sarah-Louise would take. Not that Lady Denham wasn't fond of her niece, because of course she must be, but there was no denying that the chit had no social graces whatsoever. She could not carry on even the simplest conversation without stammering and blushing and staring at the floor, which made her look rather like a wind-bent tree, because she was so very tall. Fortunate that Sarah-Louise was an heiress, because there was nothing else remarkable about her, or remarkable in a good way. Having roundly denounced every eligible gentleman of her acquaintance—save Carlisle Sutton—as madmen and villains and worse, Lady Denham deemed it proper, according to tactics, to fire a shot of some caliber. "Mr. Sutton, on the other hand, is much relished by everyone who knows him well. You may wait for me out here while I just step into this little shop."

  Sarah-Louise was relieved to be spared further embarrassing revelations. Very difficult it was to be in the practice of daily dissimulation with her aunt. She sat down on a bench in front of the corsetiere's shop. The hovering footmen looked hot, laden down as they were with her aunt's purchase. Sarah-Louise suggested that they might also have a seat. The footmen were shocked by this suggestion, and grateful, but it wouldn't be at all proper for them to do such a thing. "Fiddlesticks!" said Sarah-Louise. "I don't see what difference it makes, so long as my aunt doesn't see. Frankly, considering what type of shop this is, I should think she'll be there for some time."

  The younger footman snickered. The elder silenced him with an elbow in the ribs. With Miss Inchquist, they gazed upon an apparition mincing in their direction. "Oh!" breathed the young lady. The footmen exchanged glances, and looked the other way.

  Mistily, Sarah-Louise gazed upon her suitor—despite Lady Denham's machinations, her only suitor so far as she could tell. Mr. Teasdale wore a bright lime-green double-breasted tailcoat with square-cut skirt tails that reached below his knees, its sleeves gathered at the shoulder seam and finished at the wrist with a side slit, three buttons, and a stitched-down cuff. He had added a high-collared orange marcella waistcoat, faultless cravat, freshly pleated ruffles, pantaloons, and Hessian boots.

  Peregrine paused by the bench. Damned if he'd sit down. Her green clashed with his. "Miss Inchquist!" he said, and swept her a bow. "'What is this vision before me that I see?' I have been looking for you everywhere, since I had your note. Has the time come? Do you wish to, er—" He glanced at the wooden-faced footmen, who were staring with rapt fascination at something across the street. "'Flee as a bird to your mountain.'"

  Her mountain? Sarah-Louise could not imagine what Mr. Teasdale was going on about. Then she blushed as she realized he referred to Gretna Green. "Oh, no! That is not what I meant at all. The thing is, my papa is coming to town."

  Not an elopement? After Peregrine had spent as much time dressing as if for a ball? And very successfully, it would appear, for did he not create a sensation everywhere he went? Including among his creditors, alas? The import of Sarah-Louise's words struck him, and clashing greens forgotten, he sat down beside her on the bench. "Then time is of the essence! 'The best day ... is the first to flee'!"

  Gracious, but his jacket was blinding seen so close. Sarah-Louise twisted her reticule in her hands. "Peregrine, please do not ask me to do that. I have t-told you I cannot. I wished to tell you that because Papa will be here—you see that we must be discreet."

  Peregrine saw a most terrible vision of his creditors lined up at his door, prepared to divest him of all he owned. No longer would he be a Tulip of fashion, smug and spruce in his attire, but reduced to poverty, clad in rags or worse. But all was not yet lost. "When will your papa be here?" he asked.

  Was Mr. Teasdale angry? Sarah-Louise feared he was. "I do not know, precisely. When he can get away. I am sorry, Peregrine, but you know that Papa does not approve of my relationship with you."

  No, nor should he. Peregrine could not imagine himself a papa, but if he were one, it was deuced certain no daughter of his would marry a fellow so mired in debt as himself.

  However, he was not a papa, and his affairs were in a terrible muddle, and Peregrine would be damned if he whistled a fortune down the wind. He abandoned the Bible in favor of Mr. Shakespeare. "I am not angry, but disappointed. 'Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid!' I fear that you think more of your papa than me."

  Sarah-Louise was shocked. Naturally she loved her papa—did not everyone love their papa?—and of course she understood that her papa thought that he knew best. But Peregrine—why, Peregrine was a deity descended to earth who deigned to speak with her, and she wished only that he would not be so insistent. "Once Papa sees that all is well, he will g-go away."

  Sarah-Louise was all blushes. Her red cheeks and green dress gave her somewhat of the aspect of a holly bush. Peregrine could not think of a single line of poetry. Her chicken-heartedness exceeded all belief.

  "You are angry." Sarah-Louise studied her reticule, which she had twisted into a tangle of wire and mesh. "I was afraid that you would be."

  "You are afraid of your own shadow!" hissed Peregrine, mindful of the footmen. "I suppose it is too much to hope that you might display some backbone. Or perhaps you have grown tired of my presence. You no longer regard me as a novelty—a poet, after all. One who saw you as his muse! One who was willing to forego all other heir—all other females—and devote himself to you. I see how it is. You have been toying with me, and now your papa's arrival gives you the perfect opportunity—the perfect excuse!—to cast me aside."

  Sarah-Louise gazed at her admirer in astonishment. So did the footmen goggle, because Mr. Teasdale's voice had risen with the force of his indignation, until the elder poked the younger and they stared again across the street. "I never!" she said.

  Peregrine realized that he was glaring at the young woman about to be responsible for him going naked in the street, and adapted an amorous look instead.

  "Forgive me. I was carried away by the force of my emotion. 'Crushed in the winepress of passion!'" He raised her gloved hand to his lips.

  Sarah-Louise snatched her hand away. "Pray remember where we are! My aunt is just inside the shop."

  Hang it, but she was a coward! Peregrine reminded himself of the pecuniary advantages of marriage to so meek a little—large—mouse. "'It is no longer a passion hidden in my heart; it is Venus herself fastened to her prey,'" he said. "Miss Inchquist, please say that you will be mine."

  All this passion stuff sounded uncomfortable to Sarah-Louise. In one moment, Mr. Teasdale loaded her with vows and protestations, and caresses if she would let him, and in the next got to dagger-drawing and ripping up at her. "I already have quite enough people scolding me," she said aloud.

  Oho! Here was some spirit. Peregrine found he didn't care for it. Unless he wished to bungle the thing completely, he must keep that opinion to himself. Miss Inchquist would be obliged to knuckle down soon enough once they were wed. "Forgive me," he repeated, and reached again for her hand. "It was th
e thought of losing you that unhinged my tongue. I know I am but a mere poet, and surely you could look higher, but believe me when I tell you 'Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.' Dear one, 'Let me to thy bosom fly.’ You have quite stole my heart."

  Sarah-Louise pulled back her hand before Mr. Teasdale could press it to his chest, perhaps in proof that beneath all that marcella and starched linen a heart did indeed beat. She did not wish to give offense, and so did not tell Mr. Teasdale that she wished he would go away, not permanently, but just for a little bit. It was very difficult to think clearly when the object of one's affections was going on about winepresses and bosoms and birds in flight.

  Miss Inchquist was not alone in thinking the conversation had gone on long enough. The elder footman cleared his throat. "My aunt!" murmured Sarah-Louise. Peregrine leapt up from the bench as if bee-stung.

  When Lady Denham exited the corsetiere's shop, followed by a little clerk, she saw only a retreating lime-green back. Impossible to mistake that sartorial sense, that prancing step. "Was that the fashionable fribble?" she asked, as the clerk loaded down the footmen with further parcels. "Did he speak with you? Teasdale is a vain, silly fellow, but harmless, I suppose. What have you done to your reticule, girl?"

  Was Peregrine vain and silly? Sarah-Louise looked at her reticule. "I do not know."

  "Shoddy workmanship! Never mind, we shall buy you another." Lady Denham linked her arm through that of her niece. Her ladyship was in an excellent mood, result of her recent purchase of a Shield For The Bosom, which promised to enable the wearer to display the most graceful form imaginable, and a new Short Stay which she was anxious to apply once she got home and lay down on the floor so that her abigail might place a foot on the small of her back to gain sufficient purchase to draw the laces tight. Too, she flattered herself that she had most artfully furthered the notion of marriage with Mr. Sutton to her niece.

  Miss Inchquist might be tall and freckled, and as well very shy, but she could not be said to have more hair than sense. Before Lady Denham could reintroduce her favorite subject, Sarah-Louise spoke. "I think Mr. Sutton may have a partiality for Lady Georgiana. He did pay her particular attention at your rout."

  As had Lord Warwick paid the wench attention, reflected Lady Denham. Lady Georgiana was revealing herself as a very greedy sort of female. Odd, she was not at all what one would think of as a femme fatale.

  Lady Denham frowned. Sarah-Louise dared to hope. "Pish tush!" said Lady Denham, thus causing further disappointment. "Sutton was only amusing himself. You look distressed, niece. It is the way of gentlemen to amuse themselves, you must know that. And if you do not know it, you should know it. Come, we shall have an ice, and I will tell you all."

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The wicked Magnus Eliot went about his customary business, flirting with the ladies, and rather more than flirting with his mistresses of the moment; winning heavily at hazard, and proving rather less lucky at piquet. As was his habit, Magnus ended the evening with more funds in pocket than when he had begun. Whatever else he might be—blackguard, philanderer, seducer—Magnus was also a coolheaded gambler with a great deal of nerve and common sense. Unlike the majority of his fellow players, he knew to stop before Lady Luck turned against him, and he lost what he had won.

  That moment came earlier than usual this evening, and Magnus bid his adieux to the select gambling club which he had chosen to grace with his presence, and his clever hands. Thought of further revels did not appeal, and Magnus turned his footsteps toward home. He had hired a house in the fashionable part of town, for which he paid rather less than fourteen guineas a week, the owner of the establishment having been so ill-advised as to play with him at cards.

  Magnus climbed the polished stone steps, entered the Palladian front door, handed his manservant his hat and gloves and topcoat. Then he made his way to the library. Later, he would claim that premonition prompted him. The truth is that Magnus wished to savor a glass of smuggled French brandy before he turned in for the night.

  The library was a fine chamber, with book-lined walls and heavy oak furniture and stuffed leather chairs. In one of those chairs, a gentleman sat. In one hand he held a brandy snifter, in the other a dueling pistol. The pistol was pointed straight at Magnus's heart, and the hand which held it was not entirely steady. Perspiration beaded the intruder's forehead.

  Magnus closed the door behind him. He might have experienced more concern had he not recognized the intruder, although he did not like the sight of that gun. The Hallidays had most unique ways of striking up conversations. "Have you also come to speak to me about the whatsis?" he inquired.

  "The what?" Andrew was confused.

  "The whatsis," Magnus repeated. "That is what your sister calls it, at any rate. Or perhaps you wished to appeal to my better nature. Your sister might have told you to spare yourself the effort."

  Andrew swallowed a gulp of his brandy. "I do not wish to talk to you about my sister," he said, in tones that were somewhat slurred. "And to blazes with your better nature, and for that matter, with you! I came here to steal back the emerald—whatsis!—but I can't seem to find the blasted thing. Or perhaps I could, if I got up from this chair, but I've hurt my blasted leg."

  Magnus recalled that young Lieutenant Halliday walked with a limp. He glanced around the library, which was in considerable disarray. "You didn't find the thing because I am not so addlepated as to have it here. My man didn't tell me I had a visitor. How did you get in?"

  Andrew waved the pistol toward an open window. "If the bubble-brain could do it, then why shouldn't I?" he said obscurely, causing Mr. Eliot to try and remember if any lovelies had scaled the walls of his rented house to enter through a window, which would have been very strange behavior, in light of the fact that he would gladly welcome them properly through the front door.

  Andrew was still talking. "Even with a curst lame leg. 'Twas nothing like scaling the walls of the fortress at Badajoz. Huge ochre walls and angular bastions thirty feet high. Kestrels nesting in the castle towers. Frogs croaking nearby. Did you know that Badajoz was wrested from the Moors in 1229?" The room swam around him. Why was he sitting in this chair? Andrew remembered that his leg had given out. "I had to break the glass."

  Magnus didn't make the mistake of thinking all that ailed his visitor was an overindulgence in fine brandy. The boy looked very ill. The pistol was a danger of the pistol, not because he feared its owner, but because Lieutenant Halliday's hand was shaking so badly that the damned thing might go off by accident.

  Magnus removed himself from the line of fire. "How long have you been here?"

  Andrew shook his head, which was grown very heavy. "We sacked the town. Men dressed themselves up in silk gowns, garlanded themselves with strings of pretty Spanish shoes, carried off hams and tongues and loaves. Where have you been, Eliot? I wondered if you would ever come home."

  Magnus fervently wished he hadn't. He very much disliked the wild manner in which his uninvited guest was waving that damned pistol about. "Having failed to rob me, you decided to talk to me instead?"

  Andrew frowned in an attempt at concentration. "Something like that."

  "Good!" Magnus availed himself of some badly needed brandy. "In that case, do you think you might put away that damned barking-iron? It's a trifle disconcerting to look at you over a gun barrel." He quirked an eyebrow. "Unless you mean to call me out for conversing with your sister the other day?"

  Andrew put down the pistol, which he had forgotten he was holding. "I don't want to call anybody out. It's a bloody stupid custom. If people wish to kill each other, they should go to war. Although war is like a duel, isn't it, only it's between countries. This war started because the Spanish Royals were quarrelling among themselves, and Napoleon stepped in, and look at us now." He raised his empty hand to wipe perspiration from his face. "Anyway, I daresay it wasn't your idea to speak with my sister. Knowing Georgie, she probably spoke to yo
u first."

  "So she did." Magnus glanced at the brandy snifter which his guest still held, and looked like he might momentarily drop. "I don't think you should be drinking that."

  Andrew, too, glanced at the snifter. "Why not? You might be surprised at some of the things I've drunk. Not now, but in the Peninsula. Why—"

  "Never mind!" Magnus was less interested in the Peninsula than in his uninvited guest's obvious ill health. "Dammit, man, you're as sick as a dog."

  Dog? Andrew peered around for Lump, who he didn't think he'd brought along. Lump could hardly have scaled the fortress wall. Maybe he had left the beast outside. No, that wouldn't serve. Lump would have raised a ruckus before now. Maybe the dog had run off. Georgie would be made very unhappy if she lost her pet again. Therefore, Andrew was very sure he hadn't brought him along. He shook his head. "No. No dog," he said.

  His guest had let go of his pistol. Prudently, Magnus pushed it aside. "You meant to rob me," he remarked.

  Had he? Andrew could not remember. "That would be dishonorable," he said, just before he closed his eyes and slid unconscious to the floor. Magnus swore a great oath, and rang for his servant, and ordered his carriage brought around.

  Thus it came about that Tibble was roused so abruptly from his slumbers that he answered the front door clad in his night shirt and cap to find yet another strange gentleman demanding to see his mistress. Tibble was shocked. Surely Lady Georgiana and her admirers must know it wasn't at all the thing to be knocking up a lady at this hour of night.

  "Cut the cackle!" snapped the stranger, and strode toward his carriage, only to return with the semi-conscious Andrew under his arm. Tibble abandoned his apprehensions, along with his nightcap and his dignity, and helped the stranger carry Andrew into his chamber, and lay him on the bed. "I'll get Mistress Georgie," he said, and ran to do so, and awaken the rest of the household.